


The Deal (Note: Discontinued Version OvO)

by ClawsxOnxMyxHeartstrings



Category: Fence (Comics)
Genre: I have no idea what I’m doing but I like it, M/M, That should be all the tags, This work was discontinued on the 17th of June 2019, but Seiji makes some internal mention of his feels, feat. Nick being gay for a bit, feat. Nick’s mysterious mama that I headcanon as extremely distant, feat. Seiji’s sweet tooth (kinda), i think, more Nicky, the boys are crushing hard, this fandom needs more works and I’m here to contribute!!, wait no
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-07-15 13:22:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClawsxOnxMyxHeartstrings/pseuds/ClawsxOnxMyxHeartstrings
Summary: Nick looked like he was only on the verge of tears, droplets had broken when they hit his under eyes, so they were shiny, but there were no water trails.Nick didn’t say anything.Seiji had no fucking clue as to what he should do.(EDIT PLEASE READ: Okay so I AM thinking of rewriting some of this so it’ll better fit what I’m now envisioning due to some consulting and brainstorming with the wonderful writer of Pink Lips, Pale Face (I see u boo) @malfoyisme but I WILL be keeping this up for convenience sake and all that fun stuff, but this will from now on be the discontinued version!!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have McNo Fuckign Clue what past me started with the first few paragraphs but I took it and ran with the wind. I seriously might look back at this in the future and go ‘what the fuck is happening here???’
> 
> Anywho, hope u enjoy!!!!
> 
> Also I’m an Aussie so I have no clue, besides Wiki, on how Thanksgiving works for private schools.

“I used to work at this restaurant called Flavour Invaders; it was like half arcade, half eighties diner, y’know? One of the deals was, if you could get seventy five tickets from the games, you’d get a four person meal, for the price of one, but, actually it was four for the price of two, because the money you’d spend on the games to get that many tickets would add up to about their average meal.”

Nicholas stretched the Twizzler after he clamped his teeth on it, and successfully got a section from it.

“No one ever knew, besides the employees, especially the ones who stuck their noses in the wrong places.”

Bobby hummed playfully.

“So, you?”

“You got me, half the shit I know is because I was eavesdropping somewhere I wasn’t supposed to.” Nick tipped his head back, so it rested on Bobby’s mattress. The fencers had finished a morning practice an hour ago, and it was a holiday for everyone, so it was a free day.

“Where’s Dante?”

“Tutoring Spanish to some other students, hey, do you think I could make this?” Bobby handed Nick the fashion catalogue he’d been scanning through and pointed to the page he’d been looking at.

Nick saw the jumpsuit, three quarter pant legs, no sleeves, Peter Pan collar and a tie in at the waist sash. In the catalogue it was a bright spearmint colour.

“You ever made a jumpsuit before?”

“No, the most I’ve done is skirts and some shirts, that’s why I’m thinking of doing this one, to challenge myself.” Bobby took back the catalogue and peeled one of the sticky note tabs. He stuck it to the page as a bookmark. Nick noted there were at least twelve more tabs in the book.

“Well, we all need challenges. Speaking of challenges, how’s things going with Seiji?”

“You’re the absolute worst.”

###

Nick had a phone and a laptop, a pair of earphones he stole from a locker at his old school, and two charging cords, one for the laptop, one for the phone. His phone had only two game apps, Temple Dash and a find the object game, but the object game took too much data for him to play on it without wifi, so he almost never played it. Temple Dash grew repetitive and annoying quickly, and the music would always give him a headache so he never played it with the sounds. 

His laptop had a chip in the screen and the sound would cut out often when he used the earphones. Word Documents was probably his most used app on the laptop, it was filled with entries since 2015, since he got the laptop. He always made sure to at least make two entries in a week. Nick wondered why he started the habit, but he chalked it down to his memory, he was still a nobody, but if someone found the entries, they’d read it and he’d have someone to know his story.

Pretty depressing, honestly.

The background on the screen was a photo of him and two of his older friends, they moved away eventually. Two brothers, Ezekiel and Isaiah, standing on either side of him. Zeke was ruffling his hair, and Isi was caught in the photo mid snort.

He was their friend for about a year and a half, back when his mom was mostly around and not hung off the lip of a bottle of booze. Their mother, Azalea, would look after him, in turn he would clean for her, no payment besides a couch to crash on and food to eat. She was stern, but kind, payed more attention to him than his own mother did.

Nick clicked on Word Documents and scrolled a few pages down to his last entry. It was four days ago, mostly complaining about classes and the times he woke up, who he hung out with and his improvements in fencing, he always made sure to ask Coach Lewis about the notes she made on him, and she always told him a different thing from last time to work on.

He stared at the screen for two minutes until he started is entry.

He wrote about how his friends here were the best ones he’s ever had, how, even though the food tasted like shit, just being in the cafeteria gave him a warm buzz, how, even though Seiji annoyed him to no end, he was still able to stare at his ridiculous shoulder to waist ratio when he wasn’t looking-

Nick looked up from the keyboard, to check if he just wrote what he thought he wrote. The last thing he’d written was ‘ratio’, so he did. He grimaced at his own crush, it wasn’t even that much of a crush, it was at first a begrudging acceptance that okay, he’s kind of attractive, I see what Bobby means, but it turned into something that had more curious interest than shallow thoughts.

Of course, there were many shallow thoughts to have about Seiji, but also incredibly deep thoughts that always ended in Nick getting frustrated that he was so invested in Seiji anyway.

His finger hovered over the backspace button, wondering if he really wanted anyone to read that.

He didn’t delete it outright, he just deleted Seiji’s name, every eight times he wrote it, jeez, and replaced it with ‘him’. He even gave it it’s own paragraph.

Scrolling through the new entry, he found he’d nearly taken up the whole page. That was enough for a day.

He saved the file and exited. The home screen caught his eye again.

After pondering for a moment, he clicked on the settings, and stood from his deck to rummage for his phone cord. Took him a minute to remember it was still plugged into his laptop.

With his phone in hand, he plugged it into the computer, and the screen instantly popped up with something like ‘your device is connected’. He clicked on the new files available from the phone and scrolled through the photos, he selected four and dragged them to settings.

After a minute of arranging everything, he got the home screen to shift from picture to picture every forty five seconds. There was the one with Zeke and Isi, then himself and Azalea, one with himself, Bobby, Dante and Kally, a group shot of Eugene, Tanner, Aiden, Bobby, Kally and Harvard, all in fencing gear, fresh from training, and the last one was an old one.

His mom.

It was a picture he took of an actual photo he found, she was facing a window, cigarette in her hand as she read a book, her comically large round glasses on the tip of her sloped nose. While she didn’t tell him who took the photo, he knew it was Robert, back when they were a ‘thing’.

Nick guided the mouse over to the command section and shut down the laptop. It was nearly movie time, anyway.

###

Nick trotted down the stairs to one of the lounge rooms in the dorm. Apparently, Bobby had brought one of those fancy projector things, one of the modern ones that either used disks or a USB to phone connection. Bobby stashed seven movies when he left, and decided that he’d share them that day.

“We’ve got Heathers-“

“Bleh, only the musical is good.”

“True, I’ve got Mean Girls?”

“Oh, yes, I vote yes.”

“We know, Aiden,” Tanner said as Nick walked into the lounge, sprawled over Kally’s lap, hair being braided by the other boy. They’d moved several tables, chairs and even some shelves, to get a clear wall space so they could watch the projected movie with no abnormalities in the projection.

Seiji wasn’t there.

“Hey guys, we watching Mean Girls?”

“Only if everyone votes for it- Mean Girls? Yay or nay?”

It got a unanimous vote, besides Tanner, who was playing on his phone.

“Tanner, Tan, you vote yay or nay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he mumbled, and he yawned too. The underside of his eyes were a bluish purple.

“Whoa, long night?”

“Yeah, I stayed up with him to help him study French and Pythagoras Theorem for the tests on Wednesday and Thursday,” Kally said, opening a bag of sour worms to munch on while Bobby loaded Mean Girls into the projector. Kally had his fringe tied back with a bandana, a pale green one, and Tanner was bundled up into a hoodie and sweats, his phone way too close to his face to be good for his eyes.

Nick sat down on one of the couch seat pillows on the ground, and shifted his butt a little to get comfy.

“Hey, uh,” Bobby started, before cutting off, almost in embarrassment, “shouldn’t Seiji be here? I mean, he’s one of us, right?” Nick glanced at the entrance to the lounge, Seiji obviously wasn’t there.

“He won’t want to anyways, I think he’s legit allergic to long term human interaction.”

###

They get to the scene where Regina found out that she was being fed fattening food as a ploy to get her out of the Plastics when Nick feels his phone vibrate. He shifted from his side to his stomach to pluck the device out of his back pocket. It was a text.

Call me.

It was from his mother. Like, the one he hadn’t talked to for, about, two years?

He considered not calling her, but he had no idea how long she might be sober enough to talk to him, there were so few times he actually got to talk to her. He stood from the couch cushion and stretched as he walked to the exit of the room.

“Where’re you going?”

“Gotta call someone, be back in a bit.”

He pulled up his contacts list as he left the lounge area, and the phone trilled twice before she picked up. He stopped dead in the middle of the hallway when she did. All he heard was her breathing.

Nick opened his mouth, wanting to greet her, wanting to ask if she was okay, wanting to know what she’d been doing the last few months. Turned out she wanted to know exactly that, too.

“Nicholas Peter Cox where have you been?!”

Could ask you the same thing.

He doesn’t say anything, just scans the hallway to find an empty room. He finds the one room that’s unoccupied, one that only has some book shelves and no one ever uses it. 

No one can hear whatever he says.

“Do you know, how scary it feels, to go home to find that your son is missing?! All his things gone, room combed clean and the only person who can tell me where he is an old man who’s apparently been teaching him for five months?!”

“Mom, how old am I?”

“What- why would you ask me that?”

“Answer it, please, Mom.” Nick leant against the wall and waited for her to answer.

“Nick, you’re twelve, I’m your mom, we live next to Azalea and her boys, you’re friends with them, you stay over at her place when I can’t make it home on time.”

Nick closed his eyes, slowly sinking to the floor. His free hand curled in frustration, frustration at himself for thinking that she’d remember, and heat pricked at his eyes and his nose stung for a moment. He removed the phone from his ear and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, doing his best to breathe evenly through his nose.

He could hear her indistinct voice, he didn’t have it on speaker, but she was probably yelling. He took a deep breath, and decided he was tired of all the calls where she would forget and want him to go to her. He brought his phone to his ear, and he started talking.

“Mom, I turned sixteen four months ago, Azalea, Zeke and Isi moved away a year and a half ago, i haven’t been in contact with them since then, I was sleeping in an empty apartment, for almost a year, and I’m finally making something good with my life, away from you, when you suddenly decide to remember that you have a son, because it’s been a while since you’ve gotten drunk enough to black out and forget everything, so you call him and act like you haven’t abandoned your son. So, Mom, you want to know why I’m not there? It’s because I want to get away from you, because it’s my turn to forget you.” 

He wrenched the phone away from his face and ended the call. He turned off the phone and stared at the black screen. He could barely see his own reflection in it, but he knew his eyes would be puffy and if he went back to the others, they’d notice. 

And if they noticed, they’d ask questions.

###

Seiji glanced at his watch, it said 2:06, and he didn’t have to go tutor French to the students he was assigned until 5:00, so he got a break. The carpets of the Castello dormitories were dense as he walked on them, still wearing his running shoes from his work out and training session with Coach Osharov. The key to his room was- 

Seiji halted as he patted his pockets.

The key to his room wasn’t in his pocket.

There was no lump that said key, only lumps that said crumpled receipts and lip balm. He groaned out loud, and dropped his bag to the ground. He rummaged through it for a while until he told himself they weren’t in his bag.

“Hey,” a voice said behind him. Seiji turned to see...

Damn it, you know his name, you learnt it at tryouts.

Seiji fully turned to him. He was tall, obviously an upperclassman, dark skin, eyes and hair, he had a book bag over his shoulder and was wearing the school’s sports hoodie.

“Bobby told me the fencers are watching movies down in the lounge rooms, he would really appreciate it if you went down there.” Seiji thought for a second.

Nick most likely had both of their keys, must have picked them up to lock him out of their room.

“Is Cox there?” The upperclassman quirked a thick brow at that.

“Yes, he’s down there with them.”

“Great, then that’s where I’m going.”

###

Seiji made his way down the stairs as fast as he could, and while part of him wanted to slide down the banister and break the time in half, he didn’t want to break his body in half from falling off, so he didn’t slide down the banister. He reached the lounge hall in a short few moments, and found that almost all the rooms were occupied. 

He found the fencers quickly, he only knew one laugh that was that obnoxious, so he followed it and found them.

Harvard saw him first, and greeted him.

“Hey, Seiji, we’ve almost finished this movie, you wanna help pick the next one?” Seiji looked over the room. No Nick.

“Anyone know where Cox is? He’s got my dorm key.”

“He just left to take a call, said he’d be back in a bit,” Kally piped up from the couch, absolutely covered in a snuggly Tanner. Seiji didn’t even hesitate to answer no, and he turned away from the group.

It was strange, because of course he wanted to watch movies and enjoy time to be ‘normal’, whatever that really was. But he wanted to get into his dorm more. 

He passed one of the smaller rooms and heard a small sniffle come from the room. Seiji paused. He looked around and he knew it was from the room he just passed. While he was debating checking in on who it was, they started mumbling under their breath, and, as much as Seiji hated to admit, he knew exactly who mumbled like that, he shares a room with him.

Seiji rounded the corner to enter the room, and he found Nick sitting with his knees to his chest, and his face buried between his knees as his shoulders shivered.

Awkward.

Seiji opened his mouth to say ‘Cox, I need my key, I know you have it’, but he stopped short. Instead, he said:

“If you wanted to cry could have just used the shower, no one can tell whether you’ve been crying when all your skin is red and puffy.” Nick flinched so hard and fast Seiji swore he heard something crack. Seiji moved to sit down next to his roommate, ignoring how Nick edged away, and levelled him with a look. Nick looked like he was only on the verge of tears, droplets had broken when they hit his under eyes, so they were shiny, but there were no water trails.

Nick didn’t say anything.

Seiji had no fucking clue as to what he should do.

“Like you’ve ever had to cry in the shower.” Seiji gave Nick a small glare before moving to stand up.

“You have my key, right?” Nick patted his pockets, and pulled out two sets of keys, Nick’s had two little figurines on his key chain while Seiji just had his ID and a blue pleather tag that had his initials pressed into it.

Nick handed the key to Seiji and sat against the wall straighter, not hunching in on himself. Seiji looked over the key and shoved it into his pocket, still half standing. 

“I don’t think I can really help with anything that involves emotions, but I know that talking about them helps more than people think it does.”

“You volunteering to be my therapist?”

“No, just talk to someone about whatever this is, someone who might understand.” Seiji didn’t want to admit it, but it was even more frustrating when Nick was down low and not trying to frustrate Seiji, than when Nick would try to frustrate him. It was unnerving to see him like that.

“Sounds like you have a bit of experience in this area,” Nick said as he wiped his eyes and sniffed, no longer teary. “How about a deal?”

Seiji hesitated, trying to think of what Nick could want.

“How would it benefit me?” And Nick cracked a smile.

“If I tell you what’s on my mind, you have to tell me something no one knows about you. Every time you want to know what’s going on in my head, you have to tell me one thing.”

Seiji rolled his eyes, he suddenly wanted to go back to the dorm. Then a thought came to him.

“Only if it’s something no one but you would believe, nothing leaves these conversations, ever.” Seiji sunk back down to Nick’s level and held out his hand.

“Vice versa?”

“If you want it to be, we have a deal?”

Nick shook his hand.

###

Nick learnt that Seiji wanted to be a dancer when he was younger, and used to copy his cousin when she would practice in her ballet studio. It was why he walked a bit different, it was a habit he taught himself, to mirror people, so he always tried to match the footsteps of someone he was talking to. It was why his resting stance was third position.

Nick told him that he didn’t even tell his mom that he left for King’s Row.

###

Seiji learnt that Nick knew how to salsa.

Seiji told him that he was closer to his own coach than he was to his parents. They only called him after tournaments and saw him on the holidays, sometimes.

###

The next free day was actually a free week, because of Thanksgiving.

Majority of students went home to celebrate with their families, the one’s who didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving exactly still got to go home to their families.

Nick didn’t leave, and neither did Seiji.

All Nick got was a call from Joe, who didn’t have any family besides kids, who were older and left him behind for newer lives. Joe told him to stay out of trouble and to make sure he kept his grades above a D. 

His mom didn’t call.

###

Nick entered a cafeteria thick with silence. The only students there were either at odds with their parents, their parents were in a different country or home was a sticky situation for them. Nick’s reason was both the first former and the latter.

“Hey, Patty, not heading home for Thanksgiving?” Nick smiled as he passed the cafeteria food bench. Patricia was one of two lunch ladies still at the school during Thanksgiving, she was shorter than Nick, but she had arms that looked like they could pop someone’s head from their shoulders.

“Canada had Thanksgiving last month, went away for a week to see my family up there, so I get to make sure you boys don’t gorge yourselves on all the stashes you have- chicken or beef?”

“Beef.” Patty scooped him a ladle full of beef stew and handed it to him.

“Thanks, Patty.”

Nick weaved around the seats and tables of the cafeteria until he came to one of the window tables, they were always taken during the school days and he could never seem to get them, but for the next few days he could.

He sat there eating for the next six minutes, and as he was about to take his last bite, someone sat down opposite him, very quickly and heavily, making Nick jump just enough to make him spill what was in his spoon. Seiji looked panicked and was fidgeting his hands like he was using moisturiser or something. Nick gave him a once over, his hair was mussed, he was worrying his bottom lip and, if Nick listened, he’d hear that he was tapping his foot incessantly. What the fuck he’d be nervous about, Nick had no clue.

Seiji wasn’t even looking at him, just flicking his gaze from person to person in the cafeteria. And it clicked.

The deal.

Nick scraped his bowl clean and stood, nodding to the door, and Seiji followed, looking a little relieved.

###

After he placed the bowl into the washing dishes and left the cafeteria, he was faced with a nervous Seiji.

“Okay, if you’re this nervous, I feel like I should be nervous.” Nick didn’t expect Seiji to start pacing.

“You remember our deal, yes?”

Seiji didn’t wait for him to answer.

“Well, this is one thing I really need to tell someone, you won’t even have to tell me something this time, okay? Good.”

Nick opened his mouth and closed it a few times, before Seiji grabbed his hand and pulled him halfway to their room. Halfway there Nick yanked his hand out of Seiji’s grip.

Seiji pushed him into the room and checked the door. Nick just stood their 

“Just real quick, need to ask this; are you gonna show me a dead body? Because the amount you’re freaking out seems to be on the same level of ‘I accidentally killed someone, can you help me hide the body?’, is that a close enough guess?” Seiji paused as he was reaching for something under his bed. He turned to give Nick a flat stare, and gave whatever it was under his bed a firm yank. A black back pack sat before him on the floor between their beds. 

Seiji stood and pulled the duck curtain back and kneeled down to the bag again, using one hand to pat Nick’s bed, telling him to sit. Nick sat on his bed and watched as Seiji pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the lock on the bag’s metal zippers. The bag was pretty full looking, which didn’t help Nick’s dead body theory.

“Don’t. Tell. Anyone.”

“Do you seriously think I’d risk everything I’ve told you?”

Seiji glanced to the side at that, and opened the bag.

Nick almost choked on air.

###

Four bags of sweets fell out when the bag was opened, three were gummy worms, the fourth was a taped shut bag of marshmallows. Nick stared at the god send of a stash for a solid thirty seconds before he looked up at Seiji, down to the bag, up to Seiji, bag, Seiji, bag, Seiji, bag-

“Well?” Nick sputtered at the meek question.

“Dude! If the other guys knew about this, you’d have serious stash cred!”

“Stash cred?”

“Y’know, who has the most impressive stash with the highest quantity and quality. This would get some instant respect, if you wanna tell them, of course.” Nick nudged a gummy worm bag with his foot, and Seiji snatched the bag and the others.

“How much do you have in there?”

“Full bag, I only just filled it up yesterday,” Seiji grumbled, seeming a little embarrassed at the reveal of his major stash of sugar. A thought occurred to Nick.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be, like, super restrictive on your diet?” Seiji paused in locking the bag up again. He looked to the ground.

“My parents didn’t let me have a lot of sugar when I was younger, and whenever I did well after a match, Coach Osharov would give me something with sugar, it grew into a habit, getting sugar meant I did good and I got a reward, a bit fucked when I say it like that.”

“Honestly? Yeah, it is.” A moment of silence passed as Seiji locked the bag and shoved it under his bed, the key went into the pocket and Nick noticed something.

“You don’t have anything in your hair.” 

###

Seiji put a hand to his hair and tested of what Nick said was true. His hair was still damp from the shower he had after training and it was when he was staring at the bag before he went to get Nicholas that he felt the guilty energy of obsessively hoarding sugary snacks and felt the need to tell someone.

And who was someone he’d confessed things to, who returned that trust in full, never threatening to tell?

Seiji stood and fell back onto his bed, the nervousness fading away, not leaving in full, but enough for him to be at ease. His hair would become untameable soon, he needed to do something to it, but he just wanted to stay in the same room as Nick for a while.

“This deal has actually been pretty good so far, I expected you to get fed up with me the second time around.”

“Are your expectations of me that low?”

###

Fin.


	2. Workshops, Feelings and Parents?! Oh my!

Being in one of he school’s sports programs meant that you had a lot of responsibilities, such as; being a greeter at transition day for the young students, somehow participating in bake sales and charity fund raisers, being a decent role model, and, apparently, showing up at many of the various workshops the school would bring in to talk about either economics, jobs, first aid, mental health, and, much to Nick’s current emotional headache; homelessness.

He knew this was a set up, done by the school, they had his papers, they had seen he lived in a homeless shelter for almost a year, working his ass off to stay in school, cutting what he didn’t need and having to be his own parent, because god forbid that his own mother actually own up to being his legal guardian. 

So, as he dragged his feet down the hall to the lecture room that the workshop was being held in, he thought of just booking it out of the school entirely, because if he went in and was asked to tell us how it was to be homeless, how did you cope?

‘By minding my own business.’

It’d be known that he didn’t belong here, well, financially, he still has to stay long enough to finally kick Seiji’s ass, no matter how friendly they’d gotten over the past four months.

However, if he didn’t go in, Coach Williams wouldn’t be happy with him, especially since he’d promised to do this one, but, in his defence he hadn’t known what it would be about, he just agreed in a noncommittal way so he could go back to his room and shower; the salle showers, while nice, were way too open, and he’s seen open more than he felt he should.

He stood before the double doors, already hearing the workshop speaker talking to the students who either wanted to go, or were forced to.

At least three boys from each sports team was told to go, because this was also a press thing, like all the workshops in the school; they always got the captain, and if the team had a scholarship student, they’d go too. The third was just an unlucky student who got stuck, or they actually volunteered.

Before he opened the doors, he checked himself in one of the hall mirrors, which seemed to be everywhere, righted his sweater, blazer, and his hair.

Showtime.

——(-

Seiji glanced up at the door when it opened, and Cox walked through them, looking around the deep lecture hall. The hall had four rows of stairs and carpeted walls to stop any echo, thirty rows of seats and massive black boards that could only be reached by a ladder. Seiji nudged Harvard and nodded to Nick with his head.

The captain looked up and waved his hand to get Nick’s attention. It took a while, but Nick got to the seat they saved for him. Seiji listened back into what the speaker was saying, explaining how the rate of unemployment and homelessness was increasing in America, and only getting worse. 

The three sat on the right side of the hall, near the front, behind where some of the teachers sat. 

“Thanks, Eugene gave me dodgy directions again,” he said as he brought out his laptop, and Seiji noticed the crack in the screen, along with the photo he had as his home screen.

A woman with round glasses.

Seiji told himself he’d ask later.

Seiji looked over the speaker again, he was tall, limber, his jeans were clean, but to Seiji’s eyes seemed as if just bought days ago, his shirt was tucked in and he wore no tie, he had a brown leather jacket that had seen better days. His face was interesting, a crooked nose and odd eyes, thick eyebrows and several small piercings in one ear.

Seiji would say to anyone that the man’s taste was tacky and rubbish, but he would never say the man made up for his basic presentation with his cute face. He zoned out for some of the lecture, tuning out Nick’s rapid typing and staring at his hands, filed down nails digging into calluses.

Seiji chanced a peek at Harvard, who actually looked invested in this topic, it made sense for him to be; Harvard Lee, a compassionate student with a heart of gold and will of the explorers of old, thankfully, though, Harvard isn’t a stuck up, he knows how to have fun, how to joke and can give a relaxing energy in any room he’s in.

It helped that he had cheekbones that could cut through glass.

Seiji turned back to the speaker, and they’d reached a new topic; homeless teenagers and the dangers sleeping rough presents for them.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he looked.

Cox had closed his laptop and tucked it back into the bag he brought, face cold and spiteful. Seiji blinked, not used to seeing his roommate that way.

“Now, I feel a bit silly asking this, but it’ll help increase your awareness of how many people have been affected by homelessness; how many of you here have experienced being homeless, or sleeping rough? Just raise your hands.”

Three of the teachers raised their hands, Mr Macrone, Mr Polkon and Ms Bonvard, one of the reporters did, and two students did, too. Michael Iker from the badminton team, the last year scholarship.

And Nicholas Cox, current year scholarship student, raised his hand as he slouched in his chair. Seiji’s brows pinched together, he felt like he wanted to say something, and while his mouth opened, nothing came out for him to say.

“Okay! So, would any of you care to share your experiences?”

Mr Macrone stood up, he was a tall man, assistant coach to the basketball team, PE teacher, plus a really good counsellor, and he talked about how he would sleep rough with his mother when he was younger to avoid his father when he grew violent. That was all he said about it. 

Ms Bonvard didn’t stand, but she said that she had to couch surf for a while in her twenties.

Neither of the reporters stood up, and neither did Michael.

“Anyone else?”

——(-

Nick could feel his pulse growing louder in his ears as people spoke about their times of either sleeping rough or being homeless, and he’d already raised his hand, letting everyone know ‘hey I was homeless guys!’, and they all felt free to stare. He didn’t like people staring at him when he was this nervous.

The other student, Michael, looked shrunken in his seat, he didn’t want to tell about his times either, it seemed. Nick looked down to the speaker, he was growing nervous with the growing silence in the lecture hall. So, ignoring his shaking hands and heavy tongue, he sat up and started speaking. 

Nick can’t quite remember what it was he said, but it went along the lines of; he and his mother had always been struggling with money, he had to start doing odd jobs at the age of thirteen, he didn’t say his mother was always away, he had to sell basically everything they had on Craigslist to have the money to get into a homeless building and keep himself in school, and all he stuff he had at the school was everything he had left.

He slouched back down, and wanted to shrink at the silence that came after he finished. He shouldn’t have said that much, in all retrospect, but when he opened his mouth, sometimes he couldn’t stop talking. It suddenly felt like two heavy hands were pushing down on his shoulders, making his breath flutter slightly.

Nick shoved his hands into his lap, pressed them flat together, palm to palm, and tucked them between his thighs, stopping the shaking.

One of the teachers spoke;

“Mr Gradus, I believe it’s time to take the break we were assigned.”

“Yes! Yes, of course. Everybody, if you could come back here at two o’clock, then we could continue the workshop.”

Seiji, and he could tell Seiji was still sitting next to him, was hesitant and silent.

At least one of those things was definitely not normal for Seiji. Nick looked over to his fellow fencer, and saw him wringing his hands, lightly biting on his lip. That was one of the habits Seiji told him that he was trying to stop, because it always left him with chapped lips that would take forever to mend. But it actually looked kind of cute when he worried his lips like that, like a nervous little kid, almost. When he did it he furrowed his brows too, making him look even cuter.

Nick blinked, and in his head berated himself for sounding so dopey and sappy over his teammate, not noticing when Seiji moved.

He jumped when a hand settled on his wrist, tentative and warm. 

“Come on, if you’re going to break down, best not in here.”

——(-

As Seiji stood, he made sure to pick up his bag, and Nick did the same. They left Harvard in his seat, saying they were going to bring him some food on the way back. Well, Seiji did, Nick just followed after Seiji with his eyes avoiding anyone else’s.

That had been the most he’d ever told anyone about his old home life, except for Seiji, who knew spotted details about it, and now more since Nick just spilled more of the beans. Seiji led him to a secluded corridor, away from the lecture hall and courtyard. Nick immediately dropped his bag to the ground and slid down the wall, still unsure as to why he felt like two hands were squeezing his lungs.

“Whoa, easy, you can relax now.”

That did nothing to calm Nick’s frazzled nerves.

——(-

Seiji caught Nick’s bag by the strap and set it down gently, feeling antsy as he watched Nick devolve into a nervous wreck. 

“Whoa, easy, you can relax now,” he said, using the same voice that Harvard would use to calm down other students. It always seemed to work.

Seiji had about twenty minutes to get Nick to snap out of whatever the breakdown was about, get to the cafeteria and sneak some food for Harvard, and get a good look in the mirror to see if he was still presentable.

Okay, that last one might not be the biggest priority, but still.

From the corridor Seiji had taken them to, it would take four minutes to get to the cafeteria, three if he cut through the library. A wheeze from Nick launched him back into focus. 

“Nick, hey, is this the first time you’ve had one of these?”

Nick shook his head, his hands clasped over his head, which was nearly tucked between his knees. Seiji huffed, still unsure what to do. These things were different for everyone, so he couldn’t just expect the things that work for him to work for Nick.

He crouched down next to Nick, feeling a sense of déjà vu, back to when he’d found Nick in a similar position in the lounge rooms, just after a phone call that set him off.

Wait, the phone call...

“Who were you talking to, on the phone?”

The question made Nick’s breathing stop, and also made him turn his head up, eyebrows pinched in confusion and eyes watery.

“What?” He croaked, genuinely confused at the question.

“Back when we made the deal, who were you talking to on the phone?” He remembered that day pretty well; he hadn’t noticed that he didn’t have his keys, and he had to walk around in his sweaty clothes for longer than he wanted. He’d found Nick in an eerily familiar position as the one he was in now.

“Wh- why do you need to know?” Great, now he was getting defensive.

“Because, right now, you’re acting almost exactly the same as then, there might be a pattern.”

Seiji mentally patted himself on the back when Nick’s senses seemed to clear, just the smallest bit. His big brown eyes were staring at his hands, and he sniffed.

“My mom, is was talking to my mom- remember that- that I didn’t tell her about King’s Row?” Seiji sat down completely, giving Nick his full attention, like Nick would whenever he’d tell Nick things about him no one knew.

“You mentioned your mom back there, in the hall, was it the memories that set this off?” It seemed that anything that connected back to his living conditions and past with his mom might be the cause.

“I don’t think it’s that- I can tell you these things and I’m fine-“ Seiji watched as Nick’s eyes went back to being cloudy.

“Oh my god I told everyone.”

It clicked.

“So telling people in detail about yourself sets it off?”

——(-

Nick’s head quickly wasn’t as loud as it had been before.

“No, I think it’s... it’s having people judge me, maybe- wait, no, that’s not it...”

Nick set his head back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling in thought.

He heard Seiji shuffle a bit in his place, the keys in his blazer pocket clinking together. It took a while, but the squeezing eased on his shoulders and lungs, his mind wasn’t silent, but a calm mumble.

“I think it’s rejection.”

Nick brought his head away from the wall and tilted it back down to look at Seiji. The boy opposite him was fidgeting in place, fiddling with his cuff buttons and stretching his fingers every now and then. Another habit Seiji told him he wanted to eventually stop.

“Well, if it helps, I won’t reject you- I’ve had my fair share of that, too.” He watched as Seiji glanced at his watch, and grew confused as the taller’s eyes widened a bit.

“We’ve gotta go, right now.” Nick was slow as Seiji picked up both of their bags and didn’t wait for Nick to stand up. 

“Hey! Careful with that, it’s an old bag.” Nick made sure to keep his breath even as he caught up with Seiji, tugging his own bag out of the other’s hand.

“What’s the hurry?”

“Harvard stayed behind and I told him I’d get food for him, it takes at least three minutes to get to the cafeteria from here, if we cut through the library, we have roughly eight minutes left to get food for all three of us, so move it.”

‘And we return to our regularly scheduled attractive and thoughtful asshole programming, folks’.

Nick felt his brows lower in a mock glare, which Seiji returned with sticking out his tongue in childish mockery. Which made Nick snort, because damn was it adorable whenever Seiji did something normal.

“Dude, really? I’m surprised that no one else knows how much of a dork you are.”

“I’m surprised at how impressive your angry puppy face is, pretty adorable-“ Nick saw Seiji’s face change in an instant. As if in slow motion, Seiji’s eyes moved from his to somewhere beyond him, and his previously smirking grin changed into a fearful grimace. Nick turned to see a couple sitting on a bench in the courtyard.

“Crap, hide!” Nick was once again dragged by Seiji to hide behind one of the columns that lined the courtyard, it was barely big enough to hide the both of them.

“Of all days they decided to not show up, they choose today?” Nick blinked at how close he was to Seiji’s neck, and blushed heavily when Seiji remained oblivious to how close they were, instead glaring in no particular direction.

“I feel like I’m missing something pretty obvious here.” Seiji flinched, as if he forgot Nick was even there. 

“My parents; while never much for parent days, very into randomly showing up whenever they please,” he said, peeking around the column slowly. That left his neck very well exposed.

Nick mentally slapped himself in the face for that.

“Okay, the cafeteria is a no, then. We need to head back to the hall before they notice me.”

“Why are you avoiding them?” Seiji either ignored him or didn’t hear him, and Nick knew that Seiji had excellent hearing. Nick huffed, and took a peek around the column too. Seiji’s parents were facing away from their spot, but his mother had her head turned in a way that would make it easy for her to see them if they weren’t careful. They’d have to take stops behind each column to make sure that they made it back to the enclosed corridors.

Nick turned around enough so he could see the columns next to them. Counting them, he found there were seven.

Seiji seemed to have the same idea. Nick felt Seiji’s arm brush up against his shoulder as he checked his watch.

“We’ve got three minutes to get back to the lecture hall-“

“Hey, have you got your phone on you?” Nick had an idea.

“Yes?”

“Which of your parents is more likely to pick up an unknown phone number call?” Seiji gave Nick a sceptical look, seeming to think what Nick was thinking.

“My father, he takes a lot of unknown number calls because they might be business calls from overseas.”

“Got it, what’s his number?” Nick took his phone out and unlocked it, bringing up the keypad. Seiji told him the number and Nick stopped before he pressed call.

“What’s his car model?”

“Suzuki Swift.”

“What colour?”

“Grey, he’s got one of those pearl paints on it.”

——(-

Nick pressed call, giving Seiji a thumbs up, and steadied his breath. Prank calls or con calls weren’t foreign to him, but he had to make this good.

“This is Katayama.”

“Ey, uh, Katayama, you duh guy who own’s dat sweet Suzuki dat was parked by duh school?” Nick grinned at Seiji as the taller boy slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his laugh at Nick’s voice impression, he sounded nasally, and had a New York accent.

“Who is this? How did you get this number?”

“Listen, man, I’m jus duh grounds keepah, an I’m pretty sure yuh cah got keyed, man, damn, those kids really messed up dat paint job, such a bootiful grey, and dat finish! Man, pearl is not easy to get these days.” Nick yanked the phone away from his face and muffled a giggle.

Nick peeked around the column, and Seiji’s parents stood up, walking fast to the front of the school. Nick ended the call.

“Okay, go, go, go!” Nick whispered harshly, tugging Seiji along with him as they ran back to the hall.

“How much time do we have left?”

“Two minutes- what impression was that?”

“The dad from Family Guy, awful show, hundred percent do not recommend watching,” he responded, and soon they reached the lecture hall. They stopped, both were fit, but running while wanting to laugh made one winded. Nick cackled as Seiji had to bend down and brace his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

——(-

Harvard sighed when Nick and Seiji came through the doors, he didn’t think he could handle the reporter pestering him with question of what it’s like to be fencing with Seiji Katayama and all that. So far, he’d kept about everything he knew about Seiji quiet, instead talking about Nick, the scholarship, the one they definitely didn’t want to know anything about, but got anyways.

The two boys were close as they walked down the stairs, stopping at their row to talk for a bit, even lowly whispering to each other.

They sat down, giving a few last laughs, and Nick definitely looked better than he had before, his eyes weren’t cloudy with discomfort, instead clear with laughter.

Harvard decided not to ask what happened, instead;

“Did you guys get me any food?”

Their faces fell, and while it was funny, Harvard was seriously hungry.

“Seriously? Enjoy yourselves so much you forget about little old me?” He pulled out the pout, one that always worked on Aiden, and watched the two freshmen speedily apologise to him, Nick even thrust a bag of marshmallows at him as an apology. Harvard decided not to comment on the fact that he yanked them out of Seiji’s bag.

Score.

——(-

The workshop ended at two forty-five, and Mr Gradus left after handing everyone an awareness bracelet, it was black with white writing on it.

“Hey, were you staring at his ass the whole time?” Seiji went to stand up but clipped his head under his desk. They were in their dorm, getting ready for training after they returned from the workshop.

“Ow, crap that hurt. What was that?”

“Were you, Seiji Katayama, staring at Cheekbones McBooty, during the whole of the workshop today?” Nick revelled in the indignant blush that splashed over Seiji’s nose.

“I don’t need to tell you anything, those sort of things are my personal business. And out a shirt on, this isn’t a fundraiser car wash in an early 2000’s movie.”

“Incredibly specific, but I’ll take it,” he said as he pulled on his undershirt. And with that, he was ready. Seiji, however, always took for-fucking-ever.

“The product will just come undone while you sweat, Seij, why bother?”

“I like the routine,” Seiji shouted from the bathroom, and Nick huffed as he waited by the door, idly twirling his keys on his left hand. Seiji took two minutes more in doing his hair, and came out of the bathroom with perfectly sculpted hair.

“Are you done now, your majesty?”

“That’s a new one,” Seiji retorted as he picked up his fencing bag and plucked his own keys out of the bowl, that they had up on a bedside table they’d moved to sit beside the door.

“Yeah, because you’re a royal pain in my ass.”

Nick smiled as Seiji rolled his eyes at that, closing their door and checking the lock. The two walked in silence as they made their way to the stairs, passing a few students on the way. 

“I’d like to thank you, for helping me avoid my parents.”

“It’s no problem, I know what it’s like to have tricky family.” Nick smiled to himself. Seiji was getting easier to talk to, even though he was still an ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sup bros. So, yeah, I’ve now decided that this doc will be inconsistently be updating. For anyone who wants to come yell at me in the comments or give praise, I’d seriously love that, I love talking to all of you guys! But, you can come chat with me over on the tumblr I got recently! That’s right! I forgot to put a plug on my other stories, so here you go!  
> https://ughigottaheadache.tumblr.com   
> LOVE YOU!!!


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